The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Thursday that it will give $3.5 million to Portland State University for research and education on sustainable transportation options.

The grant will be administered by the PSU-based Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, a partnership between PSU, the University of Oregon and the Oregon Institute of Technology. The University of Utah will also participate in research funded by the grant.

PSU was one of 22 grant recipients out of 63 applications received by the DOT.

The grant-funded research and educational programs will focus on:

Improving health and safety.

Increasing the efficiency and understanding of cycling, walking and transit.

Making the best use of data, performance measures and analytical tools.

OTREC Director Jennifer Dill said the grant is a validation of the research that the research center has been doing since it was formed in 2006.

Projects at OTREC include research on such Oregon-centric topics as bike boxes and their impacts on bicycle safety in Portland, the correlations between land use and travel patterns and the air quality effects of different modes of transportation.

"We've been building on Oregon and what Oregon is known for," Dill said. "We've had a really good track record."